BetterRide Racers Kickin' Butt

Congratulations to all the riders who have been working with Gene Hamilton of BetterRide for having their best season to date. Seeing so many riders achieve personal bests and racers earning too many podium finishes to list in both cross country and downhill racing has made this a very rewarding year.

On the cross country racing scene Sarah Kaufmann took fourth at the US 24 Hour National Championships in Wisconsin and she just finished 3rd in her first pro race! Laura Patten who attended the same camp as Sarah has been tearing up in her first season racing. After winning her first to beginner races she moved up to sport for the National Finals in Snowmass and took third place. Unfortunately it seems like years of mismanagement of the NMBS Series had many BetterRide athletes choosing to skip this event. I hope the producers of this series get their act together and start offering a better value to the racers.

While most of the BetterRide downhill racers are choosing to concentrate on the Mountain States Cup Series or other regional series quite a few showed to compete in Snowmass. Two BetterRide Alumni had strong showings in the women's pro downhill race with Marla Streb taking second and Lisa Myklak earning a third place finish. In pro men Chris Van Dine is finding his form again after an injury plagued year and a half and grabbed a solid top finish.

In amateur expert racing local boy Sam Stevens earned a second place finish in the super competitive Junior Expert 16 and under class. In the same class Parker Worthington took 6th and finished 5th overall in the series while Dustin Belcher took home 9th. In Expert 18 and under coming all the way from North Carolina Ben Hulse took 9th, <http://usac.sponsorhouse.com/members/nulmer> Naish Ulmer finished 11th, Blair Reed finished 17th (and won the small final in mountain cross, <http://usac.sponsorhouse.com/members/colintrapp> Collin Trapp grabbed the 25th spot and John Koch finished 26th. The youngest Kona Grom, Madison "Mad Dawg" Bailey won the Junior 12 and under class while his dad; Brian Bailey took 5th in Expert 45-49.

Jon Trask had a fun weekend and threw down a fast time to take 3rd in Junior Sport 18 and under. In their first year racing downhill the husband and wife team of Ian and Jody Gale had a great race. Jody won her open women's class and Ian won the Beginner 19-29 class. Roy Kemp, also in his first year of racing Roy Kemp rode to a 2nd place finish in the 40-49 Beginner class while super fast junior Sam Steven's dad, won the class.

Congratulations to all of these athletes and any other athletes who are out there doing their best this summer.

About BetterRide: Gene Hamilton founded BetterRide in 1998 to provide structured, professional mtb skills coaching to cyclists of all ages and skill levels.
Gene is a licensed USA Cycling Expert Coach and has over 17 years of coaching experience including 11 years teaching mountain biking. Wrapping up his 13th season as a pro downhill racer his career highlights include winning a Silver (2002) and two Bronze Medals (2006, 1999) at the UCI World Masters Championships. For more information please visit http://www.betterride.net

Without trying to sound too much like an advertisement I cannot say enough about the Betterride clinic I took. I was an Expert/Pro XC racer (glorified roadbiker) until I went to Genes' camp and realised that downhill could be fun on a bike. It took a few races of finishing 5th and 6th in beginner but on Saturday at Snowmass it all just suddenly clicked and I found myself not only riding fast but not being scared half to death. I had been riding bikes for years and a few bad accidents but me into the cautious group of downhillers instead of the fast group and as much information that you absorb in a four day camp it really does take time and practice. Although it seems that I only think about two of the skills I learnt during the camp, once you start going fast and stop analysing every little obstacle do you realise that you are applying many many more skills you didn't know you had.